Adaptive Spacecraft Attitude Tracking Controller Design Based on Similar Skew-symmetric Structure

Abstract This article presents an adaptive attitude tracking controller with external disturbances and unknown inertia parameters. The similar skew-symmetric structure is extended from the autonomous case to the non-autonomous case. The non-autonomous similar skew-symmetric is chosen as the desired structure of the closed loop system for attitude controller design. Based on this structure, a novel adaptive backstepping scheme is proposed to design the attitude controller by taking full advantage of the symmetry and the positive definiteness of the inertia matrix. The attitude tracking precision is enhanced by employing the linear parameterized form of the external disturbance torques. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed attitude controller.